Case Study: Physician Recruitment in Rural Kansas – How an ER Vacancy Was Filled in 35 Days

Finding the right physician for a rural emergency department is one of the most demanding recruitment challenges a critical access hospital can face. This case study walks through how CI Health Group stepped into a stalled search and delivered results in just 35 days.

A 22-bed critical access hospital in Kansas serves its community with a small, committed clinical team: three employed physicians, five advanced practice providers (APPs), and support from an independent physician. Its emergency department is low-volume, seeing roughly 1,500 to 1,800 visits a year.

For years, the hospital had relied on locum tenens physicians to keep its emergency department staffed, costing the organization roughly $1.3 to $1.4 million annually. When a new CEO stepped into his role, reducing that cost became a top priority. His strategy was to hire family medicine physicians with emergency room experience to reduce reliance on locum tenens coverage.

For nearly two years, the hospital had struggled to recruit a physician independently, using word of mouth and personal connections to no avail. The ideal candidate profile was specific. The hospital needed a family medicine physician with ER experience, comfortable managing a low-volume ED without the specialist backup of a larger emergency department. An ABEM-certified physician wasn't required, and recruiting one would have priced the hospital out of candidates who actually fit the role.

Rural Kansas added its own layer of difficulty to the search. Sitting well outside the state's larger metro areas and drawing from a broad but sparsely populated region, it's a market that requires a targeted approach. However it can also be an attractive location for family medicine physicians looking to escape the fast pace of larger emergency departments in favor of a lower-volume setting with more autonomy.

CI Health Group partnered with the hospital and built the search around what the role required: a FP-ER physician comfortable practicing in a rural emergency room setting.

Rather than competing for board-certified emergency physicians, the search targeted family medicine physicians with ER experience who were looking for the pace, scope, and community of rural practice. The team built an active outreach strategy from the start, combining direct sourcing, targeted email and SMS outreach, and specialty-specific job board positioning to reach both actively searching FP-ER physicians and those open to the right opportunity. Within three weeks of launching the search, two qualified candidates had been submitted to the client and both were selected for onsite interviews.

Of the two candidates who interviewed onsite, one stood out as a stronger fit. He brought extensive experience working in rural critical access hospitals and a profile that aligned with the facility's ED needs. Additionally, the candidate was already located and licensed in Kansas, allowing the hospital to get him seeing patients sooner and start reducing its spend on locum tenens coverage. 

Within 35 days, CI Health Group stepped into a search that had stalled for nearly two years, identified two qualified candidates, and helped the hospital find the right fit for the role. After interviewing both candidates, the client selected one to hire. The hospital now has an employed FP-ER physician on staff, bringing the hospital closer to reducing its reliance on costly locum tenens coverage and building a more stable emergency department team. 

CI Health Group specializes in hard-to-fill searches across every specialty and has extensive experience placing providers in rural markets. Whether you're facing geographic isolation, a limited local candidate pool, or a role that demands the right clinical and community fit, we build a recruitment strategy shaped around the realities of rural medicine.